73:1¤ How good is God to Israel, to them that are of a right heart!
73:2But my feet were almost moved; my steps had well nigh slipped.
73:3Because I had a zeal on occasion of the wicked, seeing the prosperity of sinners.
73:4For there is no regard to their death, nor is there strength in their stripes.
73:5They are not in the labour of men: neither shall they be scourged like other men.
73:6Therefore pride hath held them fast: they are covered with their iniquity and their wickedness.
73:7Their iniquity hath come forth, as it were from fatness: they have passed into the affection of the heart.
73:8They have thought and spoken wickedness: they have spoken iniquity on high.
73:9They have set their mouth against heaven: and their tongue hath passed through the earth.
73:10Therefore will my people return here and full days shall be found in them.
73:11And they said: How doth God know? and is there knowledge in the most High?
73:12Behold these are sinners; and yet, abounding in the world they have obtained riches.
73:13And I said: Then have I in vain justified my heart, and washed my hands among the innocent.
73:14And I have been scourged all the day; and my chastisement hath been in the mornings.
73:15If I said: I will speak thus; behold I should condemn the generation of thy children.
73:16I studied that I might know this thing, it is a labour in my sight:
73:17Until I go into the sanctuary of God, and understand concerning their last ends.
73:18But indeed for deceits thou hast put it to them: when they were lifted up thou hast cast them down.
73:19How are they brought to desolation? they have suddenly ceased to be: they have perished by reason of their iniquity.
73:20As the dream of them that awake, O Lord; so in thy city thou shalt bring their image to nothing.
73:21For my heart hath been inflamed, and my reins have been changed:
73:22And I am brought to nothing, and I knew not.
73:23I am become as a beast before thee: and I am always with thee.
73:24Thou hast held me by my right hand; and by thy will thou hast conducted me, and with thy glory thou hast received me.
73:25For what have I in heaven? and besides thee what do I desire upon earth?
73:26For thee my flesh and my heart hath fainted away: thou art the God of my heart, and the God that is my portion for ever.
73:27For behold they that go far from thee shall perish: thou hast destroyed all them that are disloyal to thee.
73:28But it is good for me to adhere to my God, to put my hope in the Lord God: That I may declare all thy praises, in the gates of the daughter of Sion.
74:0Understanding for Asaph.
74:1¤ O God, why hast thou cast us off unto the end: why is thy wrath enkindled against the sheep of thy pasture?
74:2Remember thy congregation, which thou hast possessed from the beginning. The sceptre of thy inheritance which thou hast redeemed: mount Sion in which thou hast dwelt.
74:3Lift up thy hands against their pride unto the end; see what things the enemy hath done wickedly in the sanctuary.
74:4And they that hate thee have made their boasts, in the midst of thy solemnity. They have set up their ensigns for signs,
74:5And they knew not both in the going out and on the highest top. As with axes in a wood of trees,
74:6They have cut down at once the gates thereof, with axe and hatchet they have brought it down.
74:7They have set fire to thy sanctuary: they have defiled the dwelling place of thy name on the earth.
74:8They said in their heart, the whole kindred of them together: Let us abolish all the festival days of God from the land.
74:9Our signs we have not seen, there is now no prophet: and he will know us no more.
74:10How long, O God, shall the enemy reproach: is the adversary to provoke thy name for ever?
74:11Why dost thou turn away thy hand: and thy right hand out of the midst of thy bosom for ever?
74:12But God is our king before ages: he hath wrought salvation in the midst of the earth.
74:13Thou by thy strength didst make the sea firm: thou didst crush the heads of the dragons in the waters.
74:14Thou hast broken the heads of the dragon: thou hast given him to be meat for the people of the Ethiopians.
74:15Thou hast broken up the fountains and the torrents: thou hast dried up the Ethan rivers.
74:16Thine is the day, and thine is the night: thou hast made the morning light and the sun.
74:17Thou hast made all the borders of the earth: the summer and the spring were formed by thee.
74:18Remember this, the enemy hath reproached the Lord: and a foolish people hath provoked thy name.
74:19Deliver not up to beasts the souls that confess to thee: and forget not to the end the souls of thy poor.
74:20Have regard to thy covenant: for they that are the obscure of the earth have been filled with dwellings of iniquity.
74:21Let not the humble be turned away with confusion: the poor and needy shall praise thy name.
74:22Arise, O God, judge thy own cause: remember thy reproaches with which the foolish man hath reproached thee all the day.
74:23Forget not the voices of thy enemies: the pride of them that hate thee ascendeth continually.
75:0Unto the end, corrupt not, a psalm of a canticle for Asaph. Corrupt not. . .It is believed to have been the beginning of some ode or hymn, to the tune of which this psalm was to be sung. St. Augustine and other fathers take it to be an admonition of the spirit of God, not to faint or fail in our hope: but to persevere with constancy in good: because God will not fail in his due time to render to every man according to his works.
75:1¤ We will praise thee, O God: we will praise, and we will call upon thy name. We will relate thy wondrous works:
75:2When I shall take a time, I will judge justices.
75:3The earth is melted, and all that dwell therein: I have established the pillars thereof.
75:4I said to the wicked: Do not act wickedly: and to the sinners: Lift not up the horn.
75:5Lift not up your horn on high: speak not iniquity against God.
75:6For neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the desert hills:
75:7For God is the judge. One he putteth down, and another he lifteth up:
75:8For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup of strong wine full of mixture. And he hath poured it out from this to that: but the dregs thereof are not emptied: all the sinners of the earth shall drink.
75:9But I will declare for ever: I will sing to the God of Jacob.
75:10And I will break all the horns of sinners: but the horns of the just shall be exalted.